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The First Job – 3 Things you cant do without

Some people are lucky to have good jobs straight out of college and some are not! Are you and / or your loved ones that Lucky?

As Malcolm Gladwell would say Luck = Opportunity + Preparation. But honestly, and I will bet my 10 years of working with more than 200 global organizations as a people and culture consultant, luck has nothing to do with it!

A 2014 CII (Confederation of Indian industries) report co-authored by Wheebox says that only 1.5 out of every 5 Indian graduates are unemployable in India. This is a number that should scare you – it scared me!

So, here are 3 things you can’t do without to get hired for the first time :

1. Be worldly-wise and not just book-wise : When I was studying, there were all kinds of kids in class – the talkative ones and the quiet ones, the strong ones and the intelligent ones, the bookworms and the doers, the good-boys and the mis-chiefs (Pun intended) and finally, the toppers.

I got along well with most and I had somewhat of an opinion about who would succeed in life. Here is the order of people from successful to not so successful that I thought will happen : Toppers > Bookwise > Intellectuals >Good-boys>Doers >Strongmen>Talkers>Mischiefs>ME (Happily, this didn’t turn out correct!)

Today, after many years that I see what has happened, the order is insanely different. It is: Talkers > Mis-chiefs > ME> Doers > Good Boys> Toppers>Intellectuals …. and so on. I also validated this observation with friends and family and somehow , almost everyone said that it’s strangely true!

So, the first thing you need is life experience – the more you have tried, the more you have failed, the more you have seen – the better are your chances to succeed.

Focus Skills : Agility and Adaptability

2. Be the ‘Why’ Guy (Or Girl) : There is a boat-load of people who seem to have an opinion about what needs to be done. When you apply a filter to that list saying who knows ‘why’ and ‘how’, you will be surprised to see that the list has shortened by about 80%. What does this mean?

This means, that while a lot of people can be smart enough to know the right thing, they are unable to execute. When any business looks to hire, they want people who can deliver.

A while ago we were taking interviews for our business at http://www.ITrainConsultants.com; we interviewed more that 50 valid resumes to learn only one simple fact – Credentials do not guarantee skills!

So as a fresher, you should focus on ‘why and how’ you did things and not just on ‘what’; when you land that interview. You have a simple agenda – Project yourself as someone who knows how to deliver!

This alone will make you a memorable candidate and push you to the top of the shortlist.

Focus Skills : Focus on ‘Why’ and Communication

3. Become work ready : What really changes between college and work? I have asked this question to more than 1000 people across the many Campus to Corporate workshops we delivered for clients like Maruti, Sapient, Sterlite Tech. and many more. The answers I get include Money, Lifestyle, Loosing Friends, Social Circle, Needs, Responsibilities, Routine, Boredom, Less fun, Being answerable etc.

What I wanted to hear but never did, is – Expectation.

What your parents, college, and you expect from yourself are nothing similar to what a business, an employer, expects from you. That is why, what you did yesterday which worked well does not necessarily work well today (When you are at work).

You will complain that you need to be who you are, you can’t change your personality and the business needs to learn to deal with you. You will own every success and blame every failure on the effervescent – SYSTEM! But it will not help you grow.

What you need to learn is that ‘To change a system you first have to be a part of it’. Therefore – For the first 6 months or so, suppress your urge to change things, master the system and keep an open mind by listening and learning.

If you are at a place where you are not learning a lot, don’t worry – Ask!

Doing this and other simple things like ensuring right email etiquette, manners , phone etiquette, dressing well (Even if others are not doing it!) will give you something that many take years and years to build – Credibility.

Without credibility even the best ideas are worthless because the way this business world works – An idea is usually as important as the person giving it.

Focus Skills : Listening, Learning and Etiquette

I know that there are many naïve people out there who may not agree with this straight up commentary and will give a different advise. Listen to them too because what they say is not wrong. Just remember, an year later, you will be in a position to give advice and I hope that you then give what you truly believe.

We wanted to do something to help fix the issue of low employability and therefore this article. But that is not where our accountability ends, having been in learning and development for over a decade with many world class organizations, there is certainly more that can be done.

That is why we established the IERF (International Employability Research Foundation) and sculpted the Corporate Accelerator program. Simply put it does three things :

Corporate certified assessment – skill evaluation which allows the employers from 200+ organizations to see the potential talent of each student and how quickly they can deliver results once hired

Psychometric Evaluation – allowing recruitment to be a lot more focused and ensuring that the right talent is hired for the right job. Something that students will not have access to anywhere else in the country

Profile Showcase – students who certify through our program have their profile uploaded to our recruitment database which is an access point for our corporate partners to conduct their recruitment.

Here are two presentations that will tell you everything you want to know. Don’t wait, if you have outgrown this but wish that you knew about it when the time was right – please share with those who CAN use it today!

The Idea :

The Program:

We are just starting out sharing this but we spent the last 7 years building it. I will be very keen to know what you think about the ‘corporate accelerator’ idea. Looking forward to hear from you.

For sign-up, participation, referral or if you know a college that we can pitch to or anything else that you may think of , please write to ierf@itrainconsultants.com